Cookin' With Coal

Sunny Boy wrote:After the daughter talked to me about them, I've been looking at them too. Looks like they are purpose built for wood and burning anthracite was an after-thought that requires an additional $500.00-$600.00 for the kit to install coal grates.

Looks like when converted over to coal just one of them would cost as much, or more than two restored Glenwood ranges.

One thing they do have going for them is they do have some very large fireboxes compared to the early ranges.

Paul

This is true, the new stoves are VERY pricy! The new stove I do like is strictly wood, but the fire box is huge...as big as some wood stoves. It is the Kitchen Queen (will attach a photo). But with the stainless steel & glass doors you are looking at almost &7,000.00 + shipping. OUCH!

pics and video of my coal range as promised


<=== really crap video alert...you were warned!!!
well this is her....1950's era Shacklock Orion in red and cream.that black stuff is from when we have heavy rain and it falls down the chimney....and we have had alot of heavy rain recently.....it cleans off with anything that cleans a dirty benchtop/ sink etc
coal in the hole burning nicely....reloaded about 15 mins before I took this shot.
chimney damper wide open.....that black stuff is from when we have heavy rain and it runs down the inside of the chimney, it only does that if the range is banked....inlet damper open 1/8 or more stops this happening, unfortunatly 1/8 open will also boil my hotwater cylinder in the middle of the night... we have had alot of heavy rain at night recently.....it cleans off with anything that cleans a dirty benchtop/ sink etc
firebox door with main air inlet below and ash draw at the bottom
oven looking a bit dusty.....the black on the sides is from where I was drying firewood for the open fire in the living room, I forgot I had wood in there and cranked the range up to heat the kitchen..... and the wood in the oven proved it was dry enough by smoldering and smoking....i was met with a pile of ashes in the bottom of the oven when I opened the door

i've probably dried about 2 or 3 cords of soaking wet and or green wood in the oven....have not made the mistake of forgetting again

i think it kind of funny...using "dirty stinking polluting coal" to kiln dry my "clean green ecologicaly frendly" wood.....that I then burn in the most inefficient type of fireplace...an open fireplace ......is that hippies I hear choking on their tofu burgers?

Cheers

I notice that folks are talking about wood/coal ranges. I have bought, sold , and rebuilt between 3 and 4 thousand over the years. I learned some things that may be of help.
1. There are many, many out there waiting to be found and restored. They are easier to find now than they were in 1975. I bought 4 this weekend.
2. Best bet , if you plan to use it daily, is one made in the US between about 1895 and 1935. They are fairly common and parts can usually be found if needed.
3. Don't be too quick to buy an unrestored one. There are plenty around. Don;t pay too much. Make sure it is complete. Walk away if you have to.
4. European stoves are usually designed to burn fuel not common here in the USA. They are also not better designed.
5. My oldest stove is mid 1600's and my newest is about 1935. That is 300 years of development here in the US. We see a massive jump forward in design starting about 1851. By the late 1800's they had it right.
6. The new companies are either copies of old models, (Findlay) or new designs. The new designs will show their weak points in time. If they are steel there will be massive problems.
7. Many of the stoves bought in the early 1900's got little use. Gas and electric came in and folks put the coal stove in the basement. 5-10 years of use and 75 years of storage. Many are almost new. Look for these.
8. Restored stove prices are all over the place. Some folks are restorers like , Skip, Doug, and me. Others, with high prices , are brokers and buy their stoves ,at retail, and resell them at higher prices, or pay someone to restore the stoves for them. Your choice.
9. If you plan to use the stove all the time, make sure you have a fairly common model. They are common because people bought them in huge numbers and they lasted. Parts are probably still available or being remade today. I stock grates and parts that commonly wear out for the stoves I sell. Doug and Skip do as well.
10. Take your time looking. That stove in the basement is not the last in town and it is not the Mona Lisa. You don't need to make a decision on the spot.

As stovehospital mentions in point 6 of his last post, steel will not last......cast iron is the only way to go

high quality (and price ) english coal ranges are available were I live in New Zealand....all are cast iron....some have snazzy modern exterior styleing but under the frills is all cast.

with new build ranges be wary, some of the european ones are cast iron firebox but then they do dumb things like bolting a welded steel oven box in.....the best of the "new breed" european coal and wood ranges I've seen up close are from the Balkans area....the Serbs in particular seem to have a fetish for cast iron.....

on the other hand I looked at one german made range and it was entirely cast Stainless Steel....with a pricetag that was literaly 10% of what I paid for my house

Callum

Thank you Callum -for the pix and the video - very interesting.

Yours is very much like some UK ranges I've seen posted about. Even many of the really early ranges were built-in's. Very different mind-set from our American love of free standing ranges.

But the two different style of ranges still have so much in common, as far as the basic workings, that if your used one style, it would only take few minutes to sort out how to switch over to using the other.

At first glance, that small amount of opening the loading door doesn't seem like it would give much secondary air, but then, factoring in the door opening lengths, . .

Does the soft coal build up in the flues like wood creosote does, requiring a good brushing ? And if so, how often do you have to clean the flues ?

Thank you again.
Paul

stovehospital wrote:I notice that folks are talking about wood/coal ranges. I have bought, sold , and rebuilt between 3 and 4 thousand over the years. I learned some things that may be of help.
1. There are many, many out there waiting to be found and restored. They are easier to find now than they were in 1975. I bought 4 this weekend.
2. Best bet , if you plan to use it daily, is one made in the US between about 1895 and 1935. They are fairly common and parts can usually be found if needed.
3. Don't be too quick to buy an unrestored one. There are plenty around. Don;t pay too much. Make sure it is complete. Walk away if you have to.
4. European stoves are usually designed to burn fuel not common here in the USA. They are also not better designed.
5. My oldest stove is mid 1600's and my newest is about 1935. That is 300 years of development here in the US. We see a massive jump forward in design starting about 1851. By the late 1800's they had it right.
6. The new companies are either copies of old models, (Findlay) or new designs. The new designs will show their weak points in time. If they are steel there will be massive problems.
7. Many of the stoves bought in the early 1900's got little use. Gas and electric came in and folks put the coal stove in the basement. 5-10 years of use and 75 years of storage. Many are almost new. Look for these.
8. Restored stove prices are all over the place. Some folks are restorers like , Skip, Doug, and me. Others, with high prices , are brokers and buy their stoves ,at retail, and resell them at higher prices, or pay someone to restore the stoves for them. Your choice.
9. If you plan to use the stove all the time, make sure you have a fairly common model. They are common because people bought them in huge numbers and they lasted. Parts are probably still available or being remade today. I stock grates and parts that commonly wear out for the stoves I sell. Doug and Skip do as well.
10. Take your time looking. That stove in the basement is not the last in town and it is not the Mona Lisa. You don't need to make a decision on the spot.

Great advice - thank you Emery. I've emailed that to my daughter to help her with her search.

Paul

i don't get a buildup in the flue....the gas pathways in the range itself need cleaned out about once a month.

the reason for my range looking like a UK coal range is.....we are British Commonwealth.....

interestingly the Shacklock company got its start in 1890ish because the british coal ranges didn't work that well with our coal....our ranges have far larger gas passages.

Callum

Damp and chilly by the end of last week so Friday I fired the range back up again and kept it running .

Warmed up to 77 in the shade yesterday, but since the range had a load of coal going I just left it damped down like I do at night, plus with the water reservoir end shut off to send more heat to the chimney and not the kitchen.

Ran fine with no hint of wanting to go out. It just idled along keeping the stack at 100-102 degrees and the mano gauge in the .005 - .01 range all day, with the stove top over the firebox in the mid 400 degree range.

We were here all day working on the yard/garden. With the kitchen door open and just the screen storm door, it didn't over heat the kitchen either - which stayed in the upper 70's. When it was time to start cooking dinner, I just opened the dampers for a few minutes and it was ready to cook.

This is the latest in the year we've ever had the range going. And with all the glo-bull warming we may be running it even more!

Paul

Hi Paul - You asked for info on my 1910 Smith & Anthony Pearl Hub range. I picked it up in 2008 down in Connecticut.

It's a 8-20-X configuration, and is unrestored. Smith Anthony described this in my Pacific Hardware Catalog as follows :

Cabinet Base
No. 30 High Shelf
Moderately plain finished range
Well proportioned firebox
Dockash grate
Nickle trim all removable
6" flu
6X8 cooking holes
20"X20"oven
380 lbs.
Attractive in design - medium in price - $55.00

The stove was converted to kerosene at some point and the dockash grate system is missing. I don't know if I'll ever find another. Also, the cooking surface has pitting and a few cracks.

It's a pretty range, but I'm not sure when I'll restore it?

Chris

Neat looking range. Thank you !!!!! Those specs put it equal in size to Carole's Fairmount and Randy's Clarion, and slightly larger than Wilson's and my Sunny Glenwoods .

And I see it has the push/pull oven damper (direct/indirect modes) on the front above the oven door. Wilson's Sunny has that too.

Going by the lettering at the bottom of the front of the firebox, it says , "triplex grates". I suspect that's Hub's term meaning that your range had what some guys call prismatic coal grates, or what Glenwood calls triangular coal grates.

Dock Ash grates are two flat, two-sided grids that are geared together and rotate like triangular grates.

Have you tried asking at the stove restoration guys if they have patterns or NOS triangular grate bars and frame to have recast ?

Paul

Paul - Every time I mention the stove to Emery, he tells me how terrible Hub ranges were, unless they were a Barstow, which merged with Smith & Anthony @1916 or so. They like Barstows.

He said he might have grates. I've been fooling with these stoves for a while, and I'm sure something could be put together to mold from. It looks pretty standard. I've attached a few shots of the fire box/ash pit. It has a couple of kerosene feed holes for the copper tubing and a couple of hairline cracks.

It's an elegant Art Nouveau design - simple and restrained, like my Hub Heater.

Chris .

I wouldn't be surprised if grates and frame for another model, or make of range, might work in yours. Other than those horizontal ribs half way down the firebox walls, it looks very similar to my Sunny. Even the two holes in the left rear wall of the firebox for the pipe connections for a "water front" (cast iron water heating jacket) and the one hole in the upper right rear (that I have no idea what it's for) are in the same location.

That top plate to the left of the firebox (over the broiler door/upper damper) has a crack through the screw holes exactly where mine has, but mine is a narrower plate with only one screw hole at each end. The next generation of Glenwoods were beefed up with a wider plate with two holes like yours. Wilson had recasts of those single end hole plates for my Sunny, plus he has a lot of the two hole type. Maybe he has something that will work for your Hub ?

I agree. It's a very pretty range. A good size and certainly worth restoring, if you can track down parts you need.

Paul

Paul - Thanks for a the info. You're the first person to express any interest in this range! Unfortunately, my wife doesn't like ranges, so I'm not sure what I'll do with this Pearl Hub? I'll talk with Wilson about it, next time I see him.

I don't know whether you saw it, but there was a very pretty Model Stewart range on eBay, which went for $200. It was down near Hartford CT, and was a fabulous design. Unfortunately, it was missing its high shelf. I have a bunch of original Stewart range sales booklets. They made some very attractive models.

Chris

No, Chris, I missed it. Thanks for the pictures, it is a beauty.

Just out of curiosity I check eBay about every day for Glenwoods, but only once in awhile for other makes. I've been so fixated on Glenwoods for so long that I forget there are many other good makes.

This thread has helped me learn more about them, and I hope people continue to add to it with their experiences with other brands of ranges.

Paul

Hey guys. Think this question is in the right spot. Last week family and I visited a country store. In the store they had a good selection of cast iron cookware. The company is called Lodger. There label says they've been around since the 1890's. Any opinions/reviews from the regulars? Looking to surprise the wife. Thanks. Matt

PS: Chris nice looking stove.